Friday, October 03, 2008

US House passes bailout bill; Ron Paul warns of Depression

After rejecting a $700 billion bailout bill on Monday, the US House of Representatives has passed a revised and bloated version of the bill, by a vote of 263 to 171. During the debate this morning, Congressman Ron Paul of Texas criticized his colleagues for not understanding the causes of the financial crisis, and reacting in a way which will deepen and lengthen the inevitable recession: "the financial bubble created by the excessive credit and the lowering of the interest rates is the cause of the recession...The recession and/or depression will come, my sincere conviction is that by doing more mischief and not allowing markets to adjust, debt to liquidate, you're going to guarantee a depression."

Comments

What kind of goodies were promised and what kinda of threats were made?

Posted by: Faramir | 2008-10-03 1:35:15 PM

I don't yet know details about the House bill, which could be a little different from the Senate version which had earmarks galore. The original 3 page Paulsen plan balooned to 451 pages. Of course, this was another bill passed in a rushed panic, and it's unlikely that any of the 'Representatives' in either house had a chance to read the whole bill before voting (hello PATRIOT ACT)
A couple of the goodies:
"$2 million tax benefit for makers of wooden arrows for children; a $100 million tax break to benefit auto racetrack owners; $192 million in rebates on excise taxes for the Puerto Rican and Virgin Islands rum industry; $148 million in tax relief for U.S. wool fabric producers; and a $49 million tax benefit for fishermen and other plaintiffs who sued over the 1989 tanker Exxon Valdez spill."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/03/MNR813AHDN.DTL

I'm not sure what kind of bullying other Congressmen experienced, but Ron Paul who is normally not subject to this stuff (he often bucks the party line, has been safe in his Congressional seat for over a decade, and faces no Democratic opponent in November) was on Glenn Beck's radio show talking about the Monday vote (listen at 5:50): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptJIQIlJl54

I can imagine it now:

"Hey Ronnie, are you going to be a team player or not? You know, if you don't vote for this bill, people are going to say that you're not a team player. You wouldn't want that would you?"

Haha!

Posted by: Kalim Kassam | 2008-10-03 1:57:35 PM

More about the sort of threats made to convince members to pass the bill:

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) on the House floor saying that in private conversations, legislators were told that there would be huge drops in the markets and "martial law" would be imposed if the bill did not pass.